The Commerce
Department, acting on two New England Fishery Management
Council requests, today temporarily raised the amount of Atlantic
cod that commercial fishermen can land from the Gulf of Maine,
Commerce Secretary William
M. Daley announced. In other actions, Daley announced the
department approved a trip limit on Georges Bank cod to begin
August 15, and disapproved a short-term closure proposed for
Georges Bank.

The Gulf of Maine cod measure, which becomes
effective August 3, was in response to a May request for emergency
action from the New England Fishery
Management Council. The council, acting on reports from fishermen
that they were throwing away far more Gulf of Maine cod than
they were allowed to keep, asked the Secretary to take unilateral
action to increase the daily limit to as much as 700 pounds per
day.

"Raising the daily limit to 700 pounds
would significantly increase the overall removal of cod from
this stock, which is a real conservation problem," said
Daley. "Increasing the daily limit to 100 pounds is within
the council's original plan, will allow the fleet a more reasonable
cod bycatch for the remainder of the year, and will not compromise
cod recovery."

Daley also added a note of caution: "While
I am pleased that the council has recently started to devise
more effective measures for Gulf of Maine stocks, I remain deeply
concerned that the current strategy makes neither economic nor
conservation sense," he said. "Short-term closures
combined with low trip limits clearly do not promote recovery
in this important fishery. These should either be used in conjunction
with more reliable measures, or discarded as options for the
near future."

Today's announcement will allow commercial
fishing vessels with federal groundfish permits to land 100 pounds
of Atlantic cod from the Gulf of Maine for every 24 hours fished.
This revises several existing measures, including the present
daily landing limit of 30 pounds, and also limits most vessels
to 500 pounds of Gulf of Maine cod per trip.

Daley noted that the trip limit changes
announced today will not, by themselves, reduce cod removals,
but will allow fishermen to keep more cod unavoidable as bycatch,
while continuing to discourage trips seeking cod. "The more
effective measures to address overfishing will be the overall
trip limit of 500 pounds, and changes to the so-called running
clock," he said.

The action is interim, and does not rely
on the Secretary's emergency authority, which is reserved for
unanticipated events. "While I share the council's frustration
about the high cod mortality early in the year," Daley said,
"I believe that the best recovery plan will come through
the public process, where everyone can contribute, rather than
through unilateral action by my office."

In other actions on cod recovery, the Department's National
Marine Fisheries Service also disapproved a new 30-day area
closure which was proposed by the council as part of the strategy
for preventing Georges Bank cod harvests from exceeding 11.7
million pounds, this year's target total allowable catch. The
planned closure could not be implemented until September, and
would have little effect on cod harvest.

"Short-term closures have proven ineffective
in this fishery over the past few years," said Paticia Kurkul,
NOAA Fisheries regional administrator
in the Northeast.
The "best-case" technical analysis of the closure
produced meager conservation gains for cod, noted Kurkul. "The
benefits of planned short-term closures are usually offset by
the fleet simply transferring effort to other areas or other
months to make up for it."

The agency did let stand a companion measure,
a possession limit of 2,000 pounds per day, and no more than
20,000 pounds per trip that is set to begin August 15 with an
option to go lower if landings seem likely to exceed the annual
target. Last year, the Georges Bank cod harvest was about 14
million pounds, 3.7 million pounds more than the 1998 target.

The measures for Georges Bank were approved
by the New England Fishery Management Council at its April meeting.
The commercial groundfishing year begins in May. It was clear
that the measure would not be implemented until later in the
fishing year than had been anticipated when it was first considered
as part of the annual adjustment of the recovery plan in January
of 1999. The Georges Bank cod adjustments were tabled during
council deliberations in the fall and winter, delayed by extended
decision-making required to address the more critical condition
of Gulf of Maine stocks.

Groundfish stocks in the Northeast, including
cod, are managed under a recovery plan. For more information
on these stocks, see http://www.nefsc.nmfs.gov/cod99/